Welcome to the last edition of the year, I’ll see you all in 2024 !

🎅 As lots of people wind down, we’ll be looking at the age-old question. Should you do outreach over the festive period..?

Festive philosophy aside, let’s dive in ! 🚀

1. Should you sell during Christmas?

2. Recommended reading

3. Newsletter News

4. Tool that turns subs into ads, and a funny meme.

P.S. I realised I have more subscribers than X followers, which seems backwards. Say hello to me on X where I “Tweet” about newsletter stuff.

^{Will selling in December put you on the naughty list?}

Let’s be real, a lot of people start to wind down in early-mid December. Industry-dependent, not much happens after the 1st/2nd week of December. Which begs the question, should you continue trying to do deals?

❄️ Cold Outreach

You should always be prospecting.

Unless you’re booked out 4-months in advance, with repeat partnerships and ample new inbound. If that’s you, then great! Have a day off.

But for most, you should always be searching for new business. But you should approach it differently.

Between approx. December 15th and January 7th, address the festive elephant in the room, you’re reaching out when you should be eating turkey and cheese.

• At the very least say Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays.

• Be more friendly and casual.

• Don’t expect replies or calls immediately, suggest a call for January with a meeting link.

Here’s a good article: 3 reasons you should prospect in December.

🎅 Existing Conversations

The biggest takeaway from this should be:

Use Christmas/EOY to drive urgency for existing conversations.

This can be risky, you can jeopardise a perfectly healthy deal, just to try and close a few weeks earlier. So choose the conversations wisely. Are they susceptible to a discount? Did they like you personally? Are they a repeat partner? Are they the decision-maker?

Yes’s to these increase the likelihood of a successful EOY push.

🗑️ Leftover Budget

Larger companies and media agencies will have allocated budgets, that individual departments are instructed to spend in a given timespan. It’s fairly common for teams to have extra dollars lying around at the end of a year/quarter that they need to spend.

If you have a close & open relationship with someone, at a brand or agency that likes your audience, you can be rather direct about this. Straight-up asking if they have any leftover budget, and if they would like to lock in some EOY/January slots, can be quick and effective, for both sides.

Don’t be liberal with this type of messaging though.

As always, getting your point of contact on a call is the best way to find out.

One real example: I emailed an existing partner, suggesting we hop on a call to look at current results and mentioned a new initiative for Q1. Turns out, results were great, and they had plenty of leftover budget he needed to ‘get rid of’ before EOY. Forever the selfless professional, I was happy to help him out. We planned a huge renewal for the new year and the decision was pushed through in a week.

Colloquially, a partner in the following scenario is useful to get on an EOY call:

• An existing partner that has likely seen good results.

• They don’t have much, or anything, booked in next year’s calendar.

• They’re the decision-maker or can move quickly.

• You have a positive/open relationship with. You don’t need to be BFFs, it just always helps if you get on well.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure (newsletter ads).

📆 Seasonal ad spend

Financial services and (most) B2B businesses massively scale back their ad spend in late December. No one is making new investment or procurement decisions whilst they’re halfway down their advent calendar (read here).

During conversations, if a brand tells you they don’t want to run during Xmas, don’t try and convince them of the merits of this. embrace it and use it to your advantage. Either:

• Suggest running before Santa arrives, which gives you natural urgency.

• Or, start planning a January campaign. January is a very busy month for financial/b2b, so use calendar availability to lock in packages before EOY.

Now, if you’re in the consumer goods game, the festive run-up will likely be your busiest period. So try to lock in most of that spend pre-December. Smaller companies might still be scrapping around for more festive ads on December 18th. So don’t clock off too early!

Anything related to self-improvement, fitness, health, and personal finance will want to be super active in January. The ‘New Year New Me’ trend is real. So that can be a focus for you during December.

Tax-related, and some investing services, see a huge boost across Q1. Most Western countries’ tax years end in March/April, so there’s an obvious need to push related products. During this time consumers and businesses are most focused on optimising their tax burden so brands will pay a premium.

Direct your sales focus around these Christmas & Q1 trends.

These patterns exist. Don’t fight them, use them.

🙋‍♂️ How I’m approaching 2023 Christmas

I will continue to do outreach for clients, in line with the above-mentioned ethos. I may even make a festive sequence or two, I’ve heard Santa loves efficiency.

My time commitments have scaled back a little, so I can take a step back and think more strategically and long-term (e.g. focusing on growing this newsletter, future products & pivots).

Plus, I will be opening a present or two and spending time with family. Which, whilst isn’t the focus of this content, is much more important!

🧐 Recommended Reading

This week I discovered Email FYI, which focuses on tips and tricks for copywriting & storytelling.

📰 Newsletter News

Don’t miss out on this top-performing newsletter-growth agency’s availability. If you want to increase subscribers, apply here.

🤝 How this guy launched and sold a 35k-sub newsletter in 11 months.

🎅 Watch a different (maybe better) opinion on Christmas outreach.

📊 8 unconventional sponsorship strategies

🧑‍🏫 Reminder to read the ‘How to spend your EOY extra budget’ article from above. I found this super interesting. I will start reading more how-to’s aimed at marketers. Helps with buyer understanding IMO.

🤣 Inbox Banter